


five times yasha finds forgiveness

by gingergenower



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Family Dynamics, Gen, Psychological Trauma, also aSHLEY'S BACK and yaSHA'S BACK and it's the best thing now someone hug her, the mighty nein love each other so hard and it's my favourite thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingergenower/pseuds/gingergenower
Summary: “This is beautiful.”“Yeah,” she says. Her own arms are wrapped around her like a hug. “Jester painted it for me.”“She is talented.”“She is kind.” Under fingertips, the paint isn’t completely smooth. The petals and leaves are raised, the grass’ texture spiked like it’s real, generous blobs of paint deftly applied exactly how Jester envisioned it. “She didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me.”
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Yasha, Caleb Widogast & Yasha, Fjord & Yasha (Critical Role), Jester Lavorre & Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett, Nott & Yasha (Critical Role), The Mighty Nein & Yasha
Comments: 24
Kudos: 248





	five times yasha finds forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

> this is complicated because Yasha doesn't exactly owe anyone an apology but also she clearly wants to apologize sooo I want to give Yasha what she wants \o/

1.

Grimy with blood and dirt, exhausted, Yasha slides down a tree to sitting and tilts her head back, staring blankly ahead. Every time she closes her eyes she sees Beau, unconscious as Yasha plunges her blade through her stomach and yanks it back out. Her blood spattered on the stone, pulsing out of the wound with every heartbeat, skin pale, breathing shallow.

Some distance away, further in the clearing, Jester breaks off from the rest of the group and heads towards Yasha. She’s tiptoeing, clearly trying to be stealthy, but the orange leaves underfoot crunch anyway.

Stopping right in front of Yasha, Jester gives a small wave. “Hi.”

“Hi, Jester.”

Her tail flicks a little anxiously, and she’s fidgeting with the charm on her wrist, but she looks Yasha in the eye like she isn’t afraid at all. “Can I sit with you?”

Yasha hesitates. The Nein are speaking in a low hum amongst themselves, and don’t seem so worried Jester’s over here- all of them busy eating or half asleep or trying to warm up- and they agreed not to stay long. They need to keep going, but they physically could not without resting, even if just for an hour.

They don’t seem so worried Jester’s over here, with Yasha.

She nods; it’s all Jester needs.

Flopping on the ground next to Yasha, she doesn’t lean back- arranging Yasha’s arm around her, she curls into Yasha’s side, the lines of their bodies close together, head on her shoulder and legs half in Yasha’s lap, eyes fluttering shut.

“I missed you,” she says softly, bright even in her sudden tiredness, and Yasha swallows, voice low.

“I missed you too, Jester.”

At that, Jester smiles, and then sighs, burrowing even closer. Rigid and uncomfortable as she tries not to disturb Jester, Yasha watches her smile fade, her breathing slow, as she falls asleep.

Once she’s sure Jester is settled, Yasha drops her head back and keeps still, gaze falling back to the rest of them and zeroing in on Beau.

Her body language is easy read, she’s too casual and not a good liar- Beau follows Jester over. Instead of sitting down, though, she stays standing, leaning against the tree on the other side of Jester.

Her outfit- new, darker and more elegantly detailed than her last- is still torn from the battle, covered in the copper brown of her own drying blood, and she pushes her hair back out of her eyes, watching the team from Yasha’s vantage point.

“She was like, super worried about you.”

Yasha blinks, but Jester doesn’t so much as stir at Beau’s voice. “She was?”

“Yeah. She scryed on you, sometimes, to see where you were, and she’d tell us what she saw, and some of it was really fucked up, you know? So, yeah. She was really worried about you. And she kept telling us all of it wasn’t you.”

Yasha glances up to Beau, who is very deliberately not looking at either of them. “Did you believe her?”

Beau thinks for a second, and then shrugs. “I don’t know. Jester... she’s optimistic, you know? I figured she was kind of too... _much_ , that. But. Turns out she was right. So, what the fuck do I know, anyway?”

Jester doesn’t even think there’s anything forgive; Yasha looks to her. What is she supposed to do with so much faith?

“You could’ve killed her. The day you- turned on us, I guess.”

The mirror image Yasha carved her sword through, expecting to cleave through skin and bone and finding no purchase as Jester sprinted to her escape. “I know.”

“If it- look,” Beau says, turning her whole body towards Yasha, jaw tight, “if it ever happens again, ok, and there’s anything of you left, just... go for me. Not her, not them. Get me.”

Measuring Yasha’s reaction, Beau stares her down, and Yasha doesn’t know what to say.

“Beau-”

“Pretty sure I don’t want to hear you argue about how you should kill everyone else instead, so, don’t,” Beau says, warning in her voice.

Pressing her fist to her mouth, Yasha closes her eyes and forces back the grief stuck in her throat. She _owes_ Beau. “I... I will. Try.”

“Cool.” Beau exhales, nodding to herself, shaking the conversation out like it was the warm up for a fight. “Thanks.”

“Um.” Yasha thinks. “You’re welcome?”

“Don’t make it weird,” Beau says, but she’s smirking.

“You… you did just ask me to kill you.”

“Well, yeah, but- whatever,” Beau says, making a face. “Fuck it.”

Yasha huffs a laugh, turning back to Jester, who’s still fast asleep. She’s still childlike, in some ways- and yet so changed from the person she met in that tavern with Molly. They all are.

“I am sorry, Beau.”

Beau frowns. “What for?”

Yasha hesitates, her gaze flicking to Beau’s still-healing wound before she meets her eye.

Beau shrugs. “Yeah, Fjord said you went all stabby stabby. It’s whatever, I don’t even remember it. I was out.”

Beau says it so offhand, Yasha stares.

“Seriously, whatever. Just- not them, ok?”

There’s a strange weight in her words, a seriousness in responsibility Yasha hasn’t heard from her before, and she can feel how deeply Beau means it.

She wants the rest of them safe, at any cost.

“Not them,” Yasha agrees, and Beau nods, relaxing into thought.

She lingers by Jester and Yasha, either making a show of trust to the rest of the Nein or keeping watch over a too-trusting Jester, until Caleb calls across that they’re going to need to move.

Bleary, Jester blinks open at the sound, and Yasha smiles at her as she sits upright, yawning wide. Beau offers them both a hand up and they take it at the same time, hauled upright together, brushing the leaves off each other. Beau slings her arm around Jester as Jester takes Yasha’s hand, smiling up at her brightly, and they walk back together.

For a fleeting, wonderful moment, Yasha thinks they might want her to stay.

2.

In the following days, they take the long, winding path to Xhorhas. They stop occasionally in villages for supplies but no more than that, choosing to camp in the woods as much as possible. They need to keep their heads down, so they’re doing their best to.

One crisp, bright morning, they’re slow to wake. Fjord took the last watch so he’s already up when Yasha wakes, Nott sat with him around the fire they’ve set up, and Yasha stops halfway to them.

Fjord refuses to look at her unless he’s speaking directly to her. She already knows how he feels about her; he doesn’t need to speak it, and Yasha won’t fight him.

Instead, she wanders away, not quite sure of her direction until she’s already on it. They passed a patch of purple wildflowers overhanging onto a narrow dirt path less than a mile away. She didn’t pick any as they walked through the first time- and she knows Caleb noticed, because he caught her eye and held it a moment too long, assessing and focussed- so she backtracks to it, but even now, she just looks down at them, not quite ready to touch.

They’re familiar, although she can't quite place why. She stares seriously down at them, trying to remember.

“Hey, Yasha.”

She blinks, and Nott’s peeking her head out behind one of the trees. She must have either followed or tracked her, sneaking up between the trees.

“Hello, Nott,” she says, and Nott waves.

“Hello.” For a moment, Nott doesn’t say more than that, blinking up at Yasha. “Are you going to pick one?”

“I- um.” She swallows, and the flowers are lilac, a cascade of tiny flowers down the stalk. Would Zuala even love the person Yasha is now, coward she is? “I don’t- know.”

“They’re pretty.”

“They are.” Nott edges around the tree, careful not to tread on any of the flowers, and picks one string herself. She twirls it between her fingertips for a moment, admiring them, and then offers it to Yasha.

Slowly, she takes it. It’s so delicate between her fingers she’s wary of damaging it.

“They look like Molly,” Nott says, thoughtful, and Yasha almost crumples it in surprise.

She was so stuck on them because they’re the exact same shade of lilac as Mollymauk’s skin. Staring at them for longer than she possibly should, Yasha hastily pulls out her book and carefully places it between two fresh pages. It stands out so vividly; delicate petals and the dark stalk and she’s reminded of Jester saying _Molly’s still with us, the same way your beautiful wife is_.

Tears fall and she closes the book with a soft flump and holds it to her chest. Then, she leans down and picks another, offering it to Nott.

She takes and tucks it behind her ear, waiting for Yasha to put her book away before they take the path back to the Nein together, detouring to see if they can find any other wildflowers.

3.

Only barely aware of the fight as she fades in out of consciousness, Yasha hears a roar. There’s a clash of metal on metal, Caleb shouting something, and Yasha knows she needs to get up.

They weren’t expecting it. They haven’t seen anyone else in the last four days of travelling; they got complacent.

Reaching blindly, her hand finds the crossbow bolt in her thigh and she yanks it out, biting down on her hand as she repeats the process with the two bolts in her stomach and the one in her shoulder. The wrenching rip tears through her skin, hot with pain as she wreaks more damage getting them out.

Dizzy with black spots in her vision as she forces herself to concentrate on casting, she gives herself just enough health that she should be able to get to standing again. Clumsy, slow, half expecting to get kicked while she’s down, Yasha braces on her forearms and pushes herself up to her knees, glancing left.

Caduceus is already at Jester’s side, calling on the Wildmother to heal her, and Yasha hears Fjord’s voice say something and then another shout, so raw and angry Yasha flinches.

Feeling for her dropped blade next to her, she uses it as leverage to get up, staggering as she raises it, but the ambush is already over. The enemy is either dead on the ground, or has fled.

The fight is between Fjord and Beau, the latter shouting in his face, and everyone can only watch at the sudden crack of Beau’s staff catching his jaw.

“-where the fuck were _you_ , you weren’t even _here_ , if you say another fucking word I’ll beat you _so fucking hard_ the Wildmother will feel it-”

“Beau-”

“No, _fuck you_ ,” Beau spits, blood dripping down her cheek as Fjord backs up, hands raised in fear and surrender, “let it go or don’t, I don’t give a fuck, Fjord, but I don’t wanna hear your _bitchy little comments_ like I’m supposed to fucking _agree_ , you _prissy_ , _arrogant,_ mother _fucker_.”

Caleb gets in between them, trying to back Beau up, but she ignores him like he’s not even there. “Beauregard, please-”

“She just saved Jester’s life. That means something to me, even if means _shit_ to you,” Beau snaps at Fjord, who recoils in a way he didn’t when she hit him, and he doesn’t answer.

Caleb’s eyebrows raise, clearly thinking she’s gone too far, but Beau’s already turning her back on them and towards Jester and Yasha.

Yasha sheathes her sword, frowning as Beau weighs her up.

“You ok?”

“Fine,” Yasha says, eyes moving to Fjord over her head before meeting Beau’s gaze again, question in her expression. “What-?”

“He’s a piece of shit,” Beau says, matter-of-fact. She wipes the blood off her face with the back of her hand, but her knuckles are bloodied too and she just smears it. “Anyway. Thanks, for- I saw them aim, but I couldn’t- get there. I really thought-”

Jester, already slashed with a broadsword from behind, was barely standing when they turned the crossbow on her, sensing an easy kill. It was all Yasha could do to get in the way.

“Ow.”

Jester sounds more confused and annoyed than in pain, but Beau is already moving, patting Yasha’s arm as she crouches in front of Jester.

“Hey, Jess. You ok?”

“Yah. Uh. I think?”

“You’ll be alright,” Caduceus assures her, standing up himself. “You just need a rest.”

“Shall we- let’s move,” Caleb says, already sending Frumpkin ahead and planting his hand on Fjord’s shoulder. “I’ll set up the shelter, but, just- away from here. _Ja_?”

They agree and Caleb’s vision goes blank, carefully led by Fjord. Beau ignores Jester’s half-hearted protests and scoops her in her arms, carrying her, and Nott has her crossbow in her hand still, ready to cover Caleb and Fjord at a moment’s notice.

Yasha keeps pace with Caduceus at the back, keeping a nervous eye on the group’s back. “Was that my fault?”

He pats her shoulder absentmindedly and his healing energy glows in her veins, gentle in repairing her from the inside out.

“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “You could help mend it, though.”

Once Caleb stops, hand off Fjord’s shoulder, he asks everyone to keep watch as he begins to ritual cast. Jester’s still out of sorts, so Beau puts her down with Caleb and scrambles up a tree with Nott for better vantage- Yasha takes sentinel beside Jester, and Caduceus and Fjord fan out, taking up watch some distance away.

The ten minutes it takes passes in undisturbed quiet, Frumpkin sat patiently at Caleb’s side, and the intangible, orange dome puffs into existence and hides Caleb and Jester instantly. Yasha calls out softly, letting everyone know protection’s there, and waits for everyone else to retreat inside before she can breathe easy.

Wiping the worse of the blood on her hands off on her cloak, she sighs. She’ll have to wait until they find a stream all of it, it’s dried on her skin and in her clothes and matted in her _hair_ \- to feel clean again. There’s no immediate help for this.

Untangling of her braids, brown like she dipped in in shoe polish, she glances at the shelter behind her. She knows they can see her, but the absence of them makes her feel as though she’s alone, for the first time in months.

She has left them before; with a tense, childlike fear, she wonders if the solution is walking away. There’s no apology she can offer that will redeem what she did.

“You don’t have to stay out here, you know.”

Fjord’s got his arms crossed, awkward. He gives the impression of a man kicked out of the shelter by Beau’s foot or Jester’s guilt more than someone who willingly came out, and it makes Yasha even more nervous, the anxious thrum in her chest making it hard to breathe.

“I want to.”

“Right.” Fjord’s accent is still strange to Yasha, but it’s as smooth and charming as the other he used to speak with, and she doesn’t like to comment on it.

“Is Jester ok?”

“Yes, yeah, she- Beau's fussing over her.” Fjord pauses, then sighsand turns to her. “Look, I- I think I owe you an apology. I have been... unfair to you, in many respects. I just find- it felt like you betrayed us, it felt like we never knew you, and I’m having a hard time forgetting that, if I’m honest.”

“You don’t, I... I let you down. You don’t have to do anything.”

“But the thing is, you’ve already proved you’re- _you_ , again. And I do know that, I just… it’s that old anger.” He closes his eyes, shaking his head in disbelief. “It has overcome me in this, I think. And I might need some more time, to move past it, and I know that’s not fair, but I need to ask for that.”

“That’s...” Yasha smiles, humourless. There’s nothing to say it wouldn’t happen again. “I don’t trust myself, really, so.”

“That doesn’t make the way I’ve been treating you right,” Fjord says. “And I’m sorry, for what I’ve said and done; you don’t deserve it. Can you forgive me?”

Yasha falters, not quite sure how to respond. “Fjord…”

“Can you?”

She thinks about his coldness, and the last time he looked her in the eye- when she was trying to kill him and he asked her _why_.

“Yes. Of course.”

Sighing, he rubs his face, and he’s older in the face, more tired, but it’s like he was genuinely afraid of her answer. “Thank you, Yasha. Truly, I- thank you.”

“You’re- you don’t need to thank me.”

“Well,” he shrugs, and doesn’t take it back. Instead, he tilts his head in the direction of the shelter. “You coming?”

“Oh, yes, I... yes. In a minute.”

“Ok.”

“It’s just- Beau didn’t mean what she said. She was angry.”

“I think she meant every word. But, that’s my problem. Don’t worry about it.” Smiling ruefully, he ducks back inside the shelter and leaves her alone to watch the trees for a few more minutes.

She waits until her heartbeat steadies, her hands no longer shaking, before she follows him in.

4.

“This is beautiful.”

Yasha glances back, and it’s Caleb. He’s admiring the mural Jester painted from the doorway, leaning against the frame, and she smiles. It’s a field of flowers below blue skies, a distant flush of dark green woods, and it’s bright and so wonderful she just sat on the floor in front of it. She wipes her cheek, nodding, and settles again.

“Yeah,” she says. Her own arms are wrapped around her like a hug. “Jester painted it for me.”

“She is talented.”

“She is kind.” Under fingertips, the paint isn’t completely smooth. The petals and leaves are raised, the grass’ texture spiked like it’s real, generous blobs of paint deftly applied exactly how Jester envisioned it. “She didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me.”

There’s laughter, distant, somewhere in the mansion- Nott's cackle, perhaps, and Caduceus’ surprise- and there’s noise out in the street, but none of it truly touches her room. It’s so peaceful she half thinks Caleb might have gone again, but there’s a snap of his fingers and Frumpkin leaps up onto her shoulders, purring loudly as he nuzzles into the side of her face, and Caleb sits down next to her.

“I think she wanted to,” Caleb says, soft and low. “This is... she likes when we’re happy, I think.”

Yasha smiles, and tears fall again. “Yes. She does.”

Every single night since they saved her, he’s offered to cast detect magic on the back of her neck. At first, she thought it was to assure the rest of the group she wasn’t being controlled, but it became obvious he hadn’t told any of the others he was doing it.

The first time she said no, he nodded and said nothing else of it. She still doesn’t understand why.

“I am very sorry you were taken.” Caleb’s eyes, as blue as the painted sky, are faded and kind. “You were missed.”

Yasha doesn’t quite know what to say, and pets Frumpkin’s head for something to do. “Thank you, Caleb.”

“And…” he hesitates, glancing over his shoulder, but his language slips into celestial. “ _Your mind was not your own. There is nothing you could have done, Yasha. The blame is not yours; it is that of the people who enslaved you_.”

Yasha’s hand becomes a fist, and she forces her fingers straight before she scritches behind Frumpkin’s ears. “I- I am not sure that’s true.”

“It is,” Caleb says, strength in his voice, none in Yasha’s. “There are… parts of my history, I have shared with the rest of the group now, but I have not told you.”

As though a lifetime ago, Yasha remembers being told he killed his family, and keeps quiet.

“We are not the same, but that is how I know you are not guilty. I made terrible choices and believed in them. You… your choice was to try to fight. _Your mind was not your own_.”

She looks to him, blank. “I betrayed you.”

“No. You did not.”

“ _You were my family and I-_ ”

“ _Are_.” The correction of the tense is so sharp Yasha looks at him, and the lines of Caleb’s face are drawn in fierce defence. “ _We are your family, and we forgive you._”

It takes her a long time to nod- to accept it- but when she does, Caleb nods in return and stands. “We’re going to find a tavern for food and a drink tonight. You will join us, _ja_?”

“Yes, I... yes. I will.”

“Good.” Caleb nods, once to himself, and turns to leave but pauses, scratching the back of his forearm and trying to choose his words carefully. “I would know, if they were in your head. And we would help you.”

She blinks, and he reaches over, petting Frumpkin’s head as he leaves. She stays where she is until someone shouts that they’re going to leave, worrying her lip between her teeth and stroking Frumpkin, who’s half-hidden under her hair and purring loudly in her ear the whole time.

5.

That evening, three rounds in- Jester giggling over a glass of milk, Nott swigging from her flask- Yasha's listening. The tavern Caleb found is a way from the heart of the city, their strange group able to go less noticed, and they’re settled in for the night. There’s so much she’s missed.

Either side of her, Beau and Jester tell her all about the Chaos Crew and their tattoos, explaining their meanings and the gem dust in them and showing them off. Nott catches Yasha up on what seems to be every fun story they can all think of, and Caleb’s opposite her, nose in his book, only occasionally adding a comment or clarification when Jester’s storytelling runs away with itself, and Fjord’s next to him, drinking steadily. Caduceus seems distracted in his usual way at the end of the table.

As the night passes, they only get more raucous; Fjord ill-advisedly tries to out-drink Beau, Jester sat in her lap. Caleb agrees to teach Fjord how to lead once he’s tipsy himself, and Jester gives a running commentary as they trip over each other’s feet, Yasha watching with Caduceus and Nott when Jester drags Beau up to dance, too.

She laughs into her tankard as the chaos of drunken dancing lessons unfolds in front of her, and sticks her tongue out at Beau when she nearly manages to trip her up.

She loves them, and they love her. They’re family. She’s allowed to have this.

**Author's Note:**

> real talk Fjord being irrational about Yasha is gonna be fascinating, I can’t wait to see how Travis and Ashley play it out (definitely cooler/better than this)


End file.
